Short 6
by Threepwillow
Summary: Six short fics I wrote for LiveJournal's Moony/Padfoot Last Drabble Writer Standing that are otherwise unconnected. Individual warnings/summaries in each chapter. I made it to the top 3! Rating applies to only some of them. Remus/Sirius, obviously.
1. Week 1: Perfervor

_**Perfervor**_

(Sirius's spell doesn't quite work; Remus has an affliction. Buzzword was "resplendent/resplendence" and genre/cliché was "spells gone awry." Warning: wanking. I tied for the win this week!)

Sirius's Silencing Charm is not working. Not like Remus doesn't know what he's going to be doing – they all acknowledge it as truth, and ignore it to the best of their adolescent ability, never speaking of it: When a boy of sixteen comes just a _bit_ too quickly up into the dormitory, and jerks his bed-hangings shut around himself, and hastily mumbles _Silencio_, the only two things he can really be doing are crying or having a wank, because nothing else is that embarrassingly private. And as Remus has been told before, Sirius is a Black, and Blacks do not cry.

It doesn't mean he is any less wholly unprepared.

Oh, if he were anyone else, Remus thinks, he would put an end to this. If he were Peter he'd just pop out from his own curtains and cast the spell himself, though it might take a couple of tries through his stammering and blushing; if he were James he'd chuck things at Sirius's bed, heavy things like trainers (James's) and cauldrons (Sirius's) and books (probably Remus's own, lamentably) until he sussed it out, and then mock him about it for weeks. But he is Remus Lupin, and when it comes to Sirius Black he has something of an...affliction. A demented, corrosive disease, with the apparent side-effect of turning him into a somewhat hyperactive sort of thesaurus, so that the desperate crumple of shifting fabric is _hands fisted in sheets, frenetic, tenuous_ and the slim crack in the curtains, the place that is probably letting the sound out, is _sunlight glinting on mussed hair, resplendent, ethereal_ and each little gasping hitch of Sirius's un-Silenced breath is _parted lips, lascivious, wanton, delectable,_ because in all his twisted imaginings, every fleeting fantasy Remus has had of hearing all of this and more, Sirius has been sharp and loud, and hearing this whispered softness instead is the reason he can't possibly bring himself to correct Sirius's error and the reason his brain won't seem to shut off. He _can't_ put an end to this, no matter how _wrongwrongwrong_ it is, because it is just so invasively, pruriently _right_.

A deep, hard, keening noise, and Remus's left hand scrambles for his trouser zip before his right has even dropped the wand that casts a hasty _Silencio_ of his own. Sirius shifts and so does Remus, rucking up his shirt to make a wide sweaty-palmed pass down his stomach before he gets to his erection; Sirius pants and so does Remus, gasping for breath as quietly as possible because he wants to (_he wants to __**not**__ want to_) be able to hear every little sound from the other side of Sirius's curtains from the other side of his. And Sirius chokes out noises, and Remus is right behind him, a bit _more_ loudly even, thankful for his charm, especially when Sirius's bright cry of climax triggers Remus's in about two seconds flat, the cracking note crackling down Remus's overworked nerves and straight to his overheavy prick.

After that, there is at last a moment or two of true silence.

But oh, _then _–

"Quite nice, wasn't it?" hums a thick, satisfied voice.

Remus wants to cry.

"I especially liked the part where you joined in."

Remus wants to _die_.

Instead, from behind his bed-hangings, he sputters, "Whah?"

Sirius's head, jet-black hair and glint-white grin, pokes its sweaty way in a second later. "I rigged the whole room," he says, enunciating deliberately, exacerbating Remus's consumption. "No Silencing Charms for an hour. I heard _everything._"

Something spirals away out of the pit of Remus's stomach, horror, mortification, dread. And yet – _somehow_, there is a black look on Sirius's face, wry and devious, and not unlike the expression he wears when a truly brilliant prank is underway but somehow much, much more serious, that says to Remus that this could end up being either completely serendipitous or totally insalubrious.

Or with gleaming, conniving, _sexy_ Sirius Black, probably both.


	2. Week 2: Not Just A Game

_**Not Just a Game**_

(Pride of Portree loses their first match of the season. But it's not really about the Quidditch match, really. Buzzword was "proud/pride" and genre/cliché was hurt/comfort.)

" – but then Tolbert lost his grip on the Quaffle and Coleman scored _again_ and by then it was just all bloody over, even if Everett caught the Snitch, there was no way they were going to win!" Sirius slumped his face back to the pillow, where it had been when Remus had found him a good seven minutes worth of whiny match recap earlier. "There was no way _I_ was going to win. Oh, Moony, whatever is going to become of me?"

Remus shifted and frowned in the doorframe. "So let me get this straight, Sirius – you want me to feel _sorry_ for you?"

"Well it's bloody awful, isn't it?"

"Sorry for _you_ losing a wager that _you_ made on a Merlin-forsaken _Quidditch game_?"

"But it was so much gold, Moony!"

Remus crossed over to the bed and sat next to Sirius, who looked so laughably distraught that he almost couldn't stay mad at him. Almost.

"Pride hasn't lost a match this seasonnnn, Moonyyyy," Sirius whined even more melodramatically.

"Sirius, didn't Mad-Eye specifically advise you against making this wager?"

"What does bloody Mad-Eye know?"

There was a sting of anger up underneath Sirius's words that Remus was becoming upsettingly familiar with, and he bit his lip, and tried to reconsider. Sure, Sirius was being ridiculous about the whole thing. Sirius had also been stuck in this house for _ages_, and was grasping at any little straws of entertainment he could find. This wasn't, really, about the Quidditch match, or the money, or anything so simple as that.

Remus sighed, and lay a hand on Sirius's shoulder, half-heartedly. "Suppose I'll buy you a drink then."

Sirius sat up and pulled a face at him. "Moony, since when are _you_ buying _me_ anything?"

"I'm not just doing it for you, you know," Remus said, though it was as far from the truth as possible, and the color in his cheeks likely showed it. "I just couldn't possibly endure your bloody whining. I've got papers to translate."


	3. Week 3: Something I Will Dream About

_**Something I Will Dream About**_

(_"I'm hoping that the good old days are something I will dream about at night." _Buzzword was "watermelon" and genre/cliché was "holidays/on holiday.")

Something thick and wonderful is in the air. The sun is setting and the whole world is quiet, in a way Sirius can never experience in London. The whole world except for James and Peter.

"Shit, I think I just swallowed one!"

"Uh-oh, Petey, it's gonna take root in your tummy and grow a whole one up in there," James scolds melodramatically.

"Prongs, surely even you aren't stupid enough to believe that Muggle wives' tale," says Remus, softly, sucking his slice to the rind. He chews it down way closer than anyone Sirius has ever seen before. Sirius decides to try it a little.

"No," James agrees with a grin, "but I am stupid enough to use a little underage magic and charm the seeds to _actually_ grow inside anyone daft enough to swallow one. You're gonna look like you're up the duff for at _least_ the first two weeks of school!"

Peter whines and hits him, over and over again around the shoulders, until James can stand it no longer and grabs him in a headlock and wrestles him to the dry ground. They kick up clouds of dust in the scuffle that give everything a hazy edge, like Remus, who's laughing softly at them, and reaching for another slice of the watermelon. He bites into it, thick and wonderful, and a faint trickle of the juice runs down from the corner of his mouth. Sirius stares. Then Remus catches him staring. Neither can look away; Sirius thinks they're both kind of smiling. It's the last week of summer and Remus Lupin is beautiful.

Then he spits a fat black seed out and it hits Sirius straight in the eye. And the moment is over, but nobody could take it back, even if they wanted to.


	4. Week 4: To Sir

_**To Sir**_

(If the world were fair it wouldn't end like this. Buzzword was "bluff" and genre/cliché was erotica. Warning: explicit written content!/mentions of oral sex. I won this week!)

The world has not been created fair. If the world were created fair you wouldn't be here right now. You wouldn't be the one who gets shipped round the country and often round the world to translate, or infiltrate, or break; you would steal away at home and shut yourself off, and _he_ would fly off everywhere on things that some might call adventures but you know only as chores. He is built for adventures. You are built for libraries. But in this backward world he's as trapped a prisoner as ever, you're as lost a wanderer as ever. They say "at least you have each other." But in a war, no one has anyone.

An owl flutters outside the high, lofty window beside you and you let it in, relieve it, pay it, feed it. It loiters as you unfurl the parchment. The room chills with the open window but you grow warmer from the familiar hand it's written in, so you stay about the same, really.

_I'm bored,_ every letter begins. (He makes it sound so awful; you'd give anything for boredom.) And much of the rest of it is the same as usual too.

Oh, but mid-page, you come to a screeching, boiling halt.

_Truthfully, though, I'm rock-hard right now,_ he writes; your breath starts to come in little hot visible puffs – _just thinking of what I'd do if you were here. I miss your cock, Moony, the skin of your cock, the roll and slide of it, my hand, my mouth. I'd suck you so hard if you were here._ _All the way down, open my throat wide for you, your smell, your skin. Always your skin, Moony. _You nearly drop the parchment switching to the next sheet. The owl has flown. _ I know you love this. Last March, you had me by the hair and you bloody fucked my mouth. I can remember __**exactly**__ how deep down you were. You say it's the moon, you go crazy when it's approaching, lose yourself, but I think you're bluffing. I think you always want this, it's always there. Deep down, inside of you, the way I want you deep down inside of me. Take your thick, enormous cock and fuck my mouth, Remus, the way your heart and soul have fucked the whole of me._

If the world were created fair he'd write gracelessly, whiny like a petulant schoolboy, terrible at turning phrases. His words would never flutter from your hand as you jam it to your mouth, jam the other down your robes, don't even close the window.


	5. Week 5: Never Tell

_**Never Tell**_

(Something about their casual cohabitation triggers Hagrid's memory. Buzzword was "awe," which I somehow missed in the extended version, and genre/cliché was "from another character's POV." I won this week!)

He knocked. He knew better than to ring the bell.

"'Lo?"

The answer came moment later - it was Remus. "Oh, hullo, Hagrid. Sirius was expecting you, wasn't he. Please, come in."

He followed Remus into the dingy house and up and up and _up_ the stairs. He had to ascend sort of...sideways, brushing grime from the walls with every step, and it was awfully awkward. He hated this stupid stuffy house. He was pretty sure nearly everyone hated this house, even the people in it. Well, only Remus seemed to be doing all right.

But especially the one who lived upstairs.

"Beaky!" he cried, when he'd finally reached the top and squeezed into the master bedroom. He bowed hurriedly - he was practically bowing anyway in this place - and then rushed to Buckbeak, stroking his wings, scritching him under the chin, tugging the snacks he'd brought for him from within his coat. Buckbeak gobbled the first one down a bit messily and he just beamed. Oh, but he'd missed him.

"Cor, Hagrid, that's disgusting," said Sirius, hovering next to Remus in the doorframe. "How can you stand to just sit there and watch it?"

"He's so precious when 'e's all excited, inn'e?" he said, smiling broadly.

"Yes, Sirius, let them have a moment," said Remus, his smile creeping up to his eyes. "They've gone...too long apart."

Sirius shot him a funny look, then relented. "Right, fine, but I'll be in the upstairs sitting room. You can come join me when this is all over."

"I'll make some tea. What's your preference, Hagrid?"

"Eh, whatever yeh've got, with plenty o' sugar, thanks," he said.

Remus headed downstairs, and came back later with three hot cups of tea, by which point he'd joined Sirius in the sitting room. Remus passed one to Sirius without a word and Sirius drank from it completely unperturbed.

Oh.

_He remembers years and years ago, a tree on the very edge of the Forbidden Forest, with the marks of four thick claws slashed into it in the shape of an X. Behind this tree, some afternoons, he rousts out a pair of eager teenage boys, experimenting with Merlin knows what in a space they assumed private. And he smiles at them and never says a word._

Now they sat before him, _comfortable_, even in this house. Not really experimenting, then. Experiments never ended this well. Experiments didn't live together years later knowing exactly how each other took their tea.

He smiled at them, then drank. He knew. They knew. He'll never tell.


	6. Week 6: A Practical Lesson

_**A Practical Lesson**_

(Walburga's lesson teaches Sirius something altogether different. Buzzword was "frustrated" and genre/cliché was "the first time." Warning: werewolf pain and asshole pureblood prejudice. This was the week I was eliminated, but I made it to the final 3!)

Sirius can remember the first time he saw a werewolf transform. He was eleven, Regulus nearly ten, and Mother had allowed them to stay awake far past their bedtime so that they might accompany her on what she had called an _educational visit_ to a facility at the Ministry. Inside the facility was a holding cell and inside the cage was a woman. Sirius thought she might be Mother's age, though her hair was too thin, too grey, her face too worn. She sat curled in on herself in the center of the cage, in the center of the room, as wizards and witches Sirius recognized from Father's dinner parties or Mother's high teas entered and sat in crude seats along the walls. The only light in the room came from some ineffective sconces set here and there and a high, distant window directly above the cage, where cold silver moonlight seeped in.

_This woman is not a witch any more,_ Mother had said. _She associated with monsters and filth, and so she has become the filth herself._ Then the woman's skin had rippled frighteningly, and that's when Sirius knew.

She doubled over, a mess of grey-blond hair. Sirius tried to shut his eyes against it, but Mother, frustrated, hexed them open, and Regulus's too. He watched, tried not to watch as this woman – his mother's age, and had she known her as students at Hogwarts, just as Sirius would be come September? – tore herself apart, snapped and splintered until she _was_ an animal, howling, thrashing out. Somewhere else in the room a weedy dark-skinned wizard laughed, but Sirius was shaking, picking his own fingernails to shreds, wanting to weep but the hex had prevented that too, couldn't smile like Mother did, couldn't sit there unblinking and shrewd and analytical learning exactly what Mother wanted like Regulus. The lesson Sirius was taking away, as the tawny she-wolf flailed and fought and _screamed_, was a far cry from the one he was meant to.

_Maybe,_ learned Sirius, _we are the monsters._

At thirteen, Sirius is a Gryffindor, and a teenage boy, but when Remus _tells him_ he squints his eyes shut and sobs like he couldn't before. He goes catatonic, can think nothing for hours and hours but _no, no, no, no, __**no**__**,**__ not Remus, not Remus..._The pain – in flashback, from someone he'd never met – is sharp enough, thick in his throat. The pain of _this_, knowing clever unassuming Remus, roommate and study partner and dear, dear friend, must endure the tearing, thrashing, _screaming_...

When his brain snaps out of it, it is because Sirius has suddenly, _fiercely_ sworn that the pain will fucking end, and it will be him that does it.


End file.
